Mercury Striking (The Scorpius Syndrome #1)(55)
Jax blinked. Slowly. He opened his mouth to speak, and somebody rapped on the door. “What?” he asked.
“We have a problem.” Wyatt’s voice came through the door, strong and filled with stress. “There’s a scavenger team missing.”
“Goddammit.” Jax pushed away from the door, then looked down at her. “We’re not done. I’m putting a guard on the door until I get back.”
Lynne didn’t flinch. She knew Jax well enough to guess that he’d reach out to the closest thing to a military that still existed, thinking he could control the outcome. But not even Jax Mercury could outmaneuver pure evil. There had to be a way for her to get free. “Just please don’t let Ernie respond until we finish our talk.” Thunder bellowed outside as if in agreement.
“He’ll have to wait until the storm passes anyway. Tomorrow morning, Lynne.” Jax unlocked the door and stepped outside, closing the heavy metal with a slight nudge. Several locks quickly engaged.
Lynne dropped her head. She’d figured Bret would find her, but not this quickly. Not until she’d had a chance to find the location of Myriad. Before he did. Jax Mercury had been a distraction she shouldn’t have allowed, and he’d been even smarter about keeping her contained than she’d figured. She’d underestimated him.
Lightning zagged sharply outside, lighting the room. She desperately needed a few hours’ sleep, but then she’d have to find a way to escape. Rain beat against the boarded window, but without the glass, droplets slid down the wall. With a sigh, she stood and pulled the bed away from the wall so the blankets wouldn’t get wet. Then she curled up, her head on her hand.
The thrum of the angry weather outside and the meager lantern light inside lent a sense of coziness to the barren room. The fear she’d lived with for so long surrounded her. She’d rather get the battle over with and stop running, but first she had one more job to do. One more hope to chase. Or rather, one more duty to fulfill. Hope had disappeared too long ago to regain.
She replayed the canned message in her mind. The president of the United States. The person hadn’t been named. Perhaps Bret was dead and somebody else had stepped up. If he was third in line, who was fourth? Secretary of State? Hopefully not. Though even that crackpot would be better than Bret. Anybody would be better than Bret Atherton.
Had she ever loved him? There was a time, before Scorpius descended, that she had felt the giddiness, the sheer excitement, of what might’ve been love. Bret was the blond golden boy with an edge who had intrigued her. From a wealthy broken family that had kept up appearances, he’d excelled in school and then in the House of Representatives with sheer genius and stubborn will. He’d been ambitious, dedicated, and determined. She’d liked that in him. There was no subterfuge or hidden agenda, just a balls-out approach that had quickly propelled him into the Speaker position.
But she hadn’t committed fully to him.
Something, call it instinct, had whispered for caution. Every once in a while, a phrase would pass his lips that gave her pause. A view of women, no doubt colored by his drunken mother who’d worn genuine pearls and a fake smile. But Lynne had told herself that everybody had issues.
Muttering about issues, Lynne allowed sleep to pull her under.
The dream, she knew well. Most people found darkened alleys and faceless attackers in their nightmares. Not Lynne.
She stood in the Oval Office, surrounded by splendor and symbols of power. Her elbows and wrists ached, as usual, from the vials of blood taken daily for the previous three months. In the early days of Scorpius, every survivor who didn’t become a Ripper was treated like a lab rat. There were so few of them, and her blue heart had made her even more worthy of study than the others.
The president sat across from her at his desk. Pale and wan, his gnarled hand trembled when he spread out papers. “According to Vice President Atherton, you’re no more contagious than anybody else who has had the fever.” The president had nodded at Bret, who sat next to Lynne. “Including the vice president himself.”
Lynne turned and smiled at Bret. He’d been infected somehow, yet he’d survived the contagion. Nobody had attacked him, but the bacteria could live on surfaces as well as within people, and he’d come in contact with it. Her feelings were a little hurt that he hadn’t confided in her during his illness, but that was the least of her problems right now. “I’m so glad you made it,” she murmured.
“As am I.” Bret reached out and took her cool hand in his warm one as he turned to the president. “I asked the Secret Service to bring Lynne here so you could see she’s no more contagious than anybody else and should be allowed her freedom.”
Lynne tangled her fingers in his, holding tight. The CDC, her former colleagues, had pretty much kept her locked down for the last three months in the emergency triage hospital created in D. C. While she’d continue to help them find a cure for Scorpius, she still wanted her personal freedoms. “Thank you.”
The president rubbed his eyes. “Millions are already dead, soon to be billions, and I have what amounts to serial killers running amok. In addition, our enemies abroad haven’t been hit as badly as we have by Scorpius, so there’s talk of a foreign attack coming. I’m sorry, Dr. Harmony, but I don’t have time to worry about your personal freedom. Much of the world blames the CDC for failing so spectacularly, and many of our enemies believe we’re hiding a cure. That you, with your blue heart, are the cure.”